Backlog Battlefield Bad Company – Xbox 360
Battlefield Bad Company released just over a year ago on June 23, 2008, Developed by Digital Illusions using the Frostbite Engine and published by Electronic Arts (EA). The story line revolves around “B” Company of the 222nd Army battalion, more commonly known as “Bad Company and the USA are fighting a war against the Russian Federation. Your squad consists of 4 misfits, Private Preston Marlowe the games protagonist, Private Terrence Sweetwater who talks too much, Private George Gordon Haggard who often provides some sort of comic relief for the team and the leader of the group Sergeant Samuel D. Redford, He volunteered for this gig, I know he’s nuts!. During the early course of the game the 4 misfits run into the Legionnaires who are a deadly mercenary army who gets paid in gold bars. Sweetwater searches a body and takes a little gold bar from a dead body. Curiosity gets the best of Bad Company and they go on the hunt for the gold bars. During the course of the chase for the gold, they find a ship loaded with gold and guess what? The US army finds our little band of misfits and orders them to surrender. Being a party of the 222nd Army Battalion the army makes a plea deal with the 4 soldiers to investigate Serdaristan. They are ordered to capture Zavomir Serdar the dictator of Serdaristan. They take Serdar’s helicopter and fly through Serdaristan and are eventually shot down. The squad and the dictator get captured but for private Preston who manages to survive but is stripped of all his weapons. Eventually he makes his way to a monastery where the rest of his squad is being kept. They escape and flee to Sadiz, dropping Serdar off on a little island in the middle of the ocean. The squad blows up 2 bridges to slow down the US army from launching an offensive attack. The squad reaches the gold bars but their attacked by the Legionnaire and his pimped out Ka-52 Helicopter. Private Preston shots down the helicopter. The squad returns to find the US army loading the gold into trucks, Preston convinces the commanding office they are army operatives and they are given a truck filled with gold and asked to join the convoy. The 4 misfits say yes but wait they veer off from the rest of the convoy and go their own way. The game ends with the Legionnaire rising from the burning wreckage.
As you can tell the story is pretty laughable and the voice acting really sold the story. It goes to show that outstanding voice acting can really make a game memorable for the right reasons instead of the wrong reasons. One of the things I really enjoyed was equipping a grenade to my gun and blowing a hole in the wall and walking in. Who needs a doorbell right? The environments are not fully destructible which would have been kick ass. Can’t kill the sniper behind the wall? Just blow it up instead. There are a ton of guns to collect as well. The overall shooting mechanics are very well done. One thing I liked was if you died that you would just respawn and have to run back to where you died. No cut scenes, no load screens and the enemies you killed? Still dead. Your squad mates are very chatty during the game however I felt at times they were completely useless and that I was the only person doing anything to advance on each mission.
I joined a game of online multiplayer however I got my ass handed to me and was completely confused on what I was supposed to do. Maybe that was because I was playing by myself or because the players who play it have been playing for a long time. I think the objective was to find boxes and detonate them and then you would advance and try and blow up the next one. Overall my team got our asses handed to us. I could see the multiplayer being a ton of fun with a group of your friends.
Overall I paid $14.99 Canadian for Battlefield Bad Company and I really enjoyed the game. The single player campaign seemed very short some compare it to the length of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare however I found it a lot shorter. I’m still on the fence on whether or not it was too short for a single player campaign. I enjoyed the voice acting, the laughable story, and the somewhat destructive buildings and most importantly the shooting mechanics were spot on. Highly recommended if you haven’t played it yet.
Backlog Dead Space – Xbox 360
Well Mister Isaac Clarke that was a fun eight and half hour experience we shared together on the USG Ishimura. The music, the atmosphere, the ambience and the Necromorphs scared the living daylight out of me more times than I can count.
Here is a summary of the story, one of my favourite stories in the last 12 months. Isaac’s ship the USG Kellion received a distress signal from the USG Ishimura, the Kellion ship tries to dock with the Ishimura but a malfunction happens and the Kellion is badly damaged. The Kellion crew explores Ishimura to find a way home, the crew notices the Ishimura is pretty much abandoned. Captain Hammond recognizes the Ishimura is suffering from serious malfunctions and sends Isaac Clarke on 12 gruelling missions to fix the ship. During the course of the game you stumble across various text and audio logs that explain the captain of the ship belong to a religious cult that sought a religious artefact “the marker” from Aegis VII by the means of illegal mining. The marker was brought on board and the crew attacked each other, killing each other. Than an alien orgasm ravaged through the ship turning all the dead bodies into necromorphs. What keeps Clarke going is the fact he is looking for his girlfriend who was a member aboard the USG Ishimura. With the critical systems repaired, they launch the distress beacon which attracts the USM Valor. The bad news, a necromorphs were already on board the Valor. Clarke than boards the Valor, fights out the necromorphs and takes the ship power core so he can fix a shuttle and leave this awful area. Dr. Kyne later contacts Clarke and urges him to return the Marker to Aegis VII, believing that it was a means of restraining the Hive Mind that controls the Necromorph. Dr.Kyne is later murdered by Isaac’s fellow crew member Daniels, who states she works for the government and she needs the Marker. Daniel tells Clarke that the Marker is actually reverse-engineered version based on an artifact found on earth. The government placed it on Aegis VII to monitor its effects (never trust the government!). The back stabbing Daniels, takes Clarkes shuttle and leaves. Luckily, Isaac’s girlfriend Nicole arrives and together they recall the ship. Together they take the shuttle and head down to the colony and replace it. Obviously, Daniels arrives and tries to stop Isaac. She returns to the marker to the shuttle, when she’s attacked and killed by the Hive Mind. Leaving Isaac to kill it and escape from the planet.
Well as you can tell I loved the story, it was very deep and interesting. The text and audio logs would fill in little details about what had gone wrong on the ship. This little concept worked great for me every time I found a new log; I would crank up the sound and listen. Even the background noises in the logs were very well done. In order to kill the Necromorphs the best approach is to dismember their bodies; my approach was to first use stasis and then shoot each leg. This gave me ample time to stop their arms and head to death. The physics and dismemberment technology was very well done and very interesting way to play a game. I hate to admit it but yes, Dead Space scared the shit out of me at least once per level. I could literally only play a level a day or so, it was truly a scary fun experience. Throughout the game you find power nodes, these allow you to upgrade your armour or your guns, I managed to find enough power nodes to upgrade my plasma cutter to the maximum, it sure made my day easier!. I had heard before I started playing this game that ammo was precious commodity, throughout the 12 levels I only had 1 section of the game where I ran out of ammo and had to use a force gun to plow my way through the enemies. Other than that I found enough items to sell at the store to buy ammo. The zero G sections in the game literally made me sick to my stomach, I’m not sure what it is about these types of scenarios in game that make me sick but they just do.
Overall I had avoided Dead Space when it launched back in 2008, there was so many games on the market that I wanted to buy and play. I regret not playing it sooner!. For $29.99 price tag, it was a great experience, I even bought some of the downloadable content to support the developer. I really hope they take what they started here in Dead Space and improved on it for Dead Space 2. I surely won’t pass up Dead Space 2 on launch.
read moreLost Planet Extreme Edition – Xbox 360
Lost Planet was released back in 2007 and I picked up the title as it was getting great accolades from the friends and various media outlets. Well I stopped playing half through level 6 because I was couldn’t get passed it. Well fast forward to 2009, I’ve matured as gamer and learned to love to genres of games so I figured it was time to go back and play Lost Planet and finish the game since the sequel is coming out.
Basically Lost Planet takes place on the planet of E.D.N III in the year T.C. -80. A group name NEVEC (Neo-Venus Construction) starting colonizing on this planet because earth had become too hostile. There’s one problem with E.D.N III the alien species named the Akrid who possess the ever precious thermal energy. You play as a snow pirate named Wayne Holden who wants to continue in his dad’s footsteps and overthrow NEVEC.
I’ve been trying to write this for a few days but I am at a loss on how to describe my frustrations with this game. I could only manage to play a single level per sitting before needing to take a break with this game. This is very unusual for me because normally I can play for 4-5 hours per sitting. I can narrow done my real disliking for this game by saying that Lost Planets story can be very confusing at times and it isn’t the amount of enemies on screen that make a game difficult, it’s the quality of the AI used the game. I found myself repeatedly getting annoyed with the amount of Akrid on screen. It was absolutely unnecessary, it felt like they just really wanted to you feel annoyed and frustrated with the game. I guess the only positive out of that was there were a wide variety of enemies on screen.
Overall for $9.99 used game, I was happy I finished the game and will totally play Lost Planet 2. I’m not sure I’ll buy it but I will play it. If you happen to see this game in the bargain bin at your local game store, pick it up and give it a chance.
read moreTetris For the Iphone/Itouch
Tetris has been released for the Iphone and is published by Electronic Arts. I saw this in the app store for $4.99 (50 % off holiday sale) and I thought to myself, “You need to pick this up!” As soon as I clicked the purchase button I felt some sort of nostalgia come over me. I instantly flashed back to 1992, walking out of a store (the name I can’t remember at this moment) with my grandmother who had just bought my Nintendo GameBoy with Tetris and Blades of Steel – At least this time I didn’t have my parents screaming at me for this purchase of Tetris.
Nothing new on the game play front, with the exception of the ability to listen to your Itunes music collection while you play Tetris. It does feature 4 original soundtrack songs. The game features 2 modes called Marathon and Magic, and 15 Levels. Marathon mode features level 1 through 15, can you beat all levels? I couldn’t get pass level 9. The difficulty in this game sky rockets from levels 9-15. Magic Mode offers special tools that take advantage of the Iphones capabilities. Magic mode gives you 5 powers that you earn throughout the levels to manipulate the pieces to your advantage so you can clear all the lines. The powers are Bubble Wrap, Magic Crayon, Wrecking Ball, Minimizer and Smashdown .Like most other Iphone games you touch the screen and drag ,rotate drop the pieces where you want them to go, just tab the piece on screen and the block will flip positions allowing you to place it just perfectly. Like most other Iphone games you touch the screen and drag the pieces where you would like them to go, simply tap the piece on screen and the block will flip positions allowing you to place it just perfectly. The controls are just perfect. The touch screen suits Tetris. There have been a lot of complaints that Tetris will crash your Iphone/Itouch.
If you are a Tetris fan and have an Iphone or Itouch and are looking for a game to play, I recommend you pick up Tetris before it goes back to regular price.
read moreGears of War 2 Combustible Map Pack Review
On December 15th 2008 at the Spike Videogame Awards Cole Train made a special appearance where he announced the Combustible map pack for GoW2 that would be released that night at 12am PST and cost 800 MS points (10 Dollars)
Here is the launch trailer courtesy of 1up.com/Gamevideos
I know I am bit behind on posting about the map pack but I wanted to have sometime with the 3 new maps before posting about them.
Flood:
Flood is a smaller map that has Imulsion throughout the level, watch your step you don’t want to catch fire and die. I was a bit skeptical of this map at first because it is a smaller map but after playing with it extensively I find that I love the intense fire fights that this map offers.
An abandoned fuel station why not blow up the tanks and scare the enemy or head up the second level of station and control the map. There are only 2 ways upstairs plant those grenades on the stairs and then get ready to shotgun any enemy that decides to come up the evaluator. The team that usually controls the second level wins the game. This map is a fun map it really is but is not suited for all game modes and is probably the weakest map of the map pack.
Gold Rush:
Is a two level map that has a sniper on the second level and a mortar on the first level. Decisions, Decisions where do you go? Do you take the mortar and try and destroy the enemy on the second level or do you go after the sniper and blow off the enemy’s head on the lower level.
Conclusion
There was not hints dropped by Epic Games that DLC maps were coming and they came quick after launching the game. GoW2 was still suffering from matchmaking issues and adding more maps to the fold may have not been the best thing for it. The marketing campaign to have Cole come up on screen at the Spike Video game awards and announce the Conbustible Map Pack and that it
read moreBeejive IM for the Iphone/Itouch
The Beejive Company has released version 2.0 of the widely popular IM client on the Iphone. It may come with a steep price tag of $15.99(!!!) but it is worth every penny and much much more. It supports a wide variety of IM clients and is probably one the most intuitive applications available.
As soon as I downloaded the application and synced up my Iphone 3g on the Rogers network, I doubled clicked the application, added my MSN account, Google talk account and logged into both at the same time with zero problems. The tabs of the application are Buddy list, favourites, chats, accounts and more. As soon as I logged into MSN I was surprised to see my groups were imported as is, does it ever make communicating a lot easier when you have your contacts sorted into groups. Once you closed the application it doesn’t log you out, it simply will email you a notification of a chat if you have push email service enabled. You can also send and receive files with this application. I guess the single biggest feature it is it doesn’t kill your battery. That’s right it’s very gentle on your battery life!
Overall this is by the single best IM application in the Itunes Application store. I can’t wait to see what future updates this application holds.
